CASE STUDY: 3Rnet.co.uk reaps benefits of adding Purple Networx to its portfolio

Background
Robinson wanted to source a telephony solution that would complement 3Rnet.co.uk’s existing portfolio of products and also be simple to install, manage and use.
Established six years ago, 3Rnet.co.uk offers a range of IT and telecoms solutions to businesses and home-workers. In addition to products such as ADSL, ADSL routing, antivirus, hosting and VoIP, 3Rnet.co.uk provides comprehensive IT support and maintenance. 3Rnet.co.uk added telecoms solutions to the company’s product range when it signed up as a reseller with O-bit Telecom in 2005.

Challenge
3Rnet.co.uk’s CEO Richard Robinson recognised a need to expand his company’s reach into the telecoms sector in order to remain competitive in the reseller space. Robinson wanted to source a telephony solution that would complement 3Rnet.co.uk’s existing portfolio of products and also be simple to install, manage and use.

“Simplicity and scalability is the key to finding a product that will ultimately be profitable as a reseller,” explains Robinson. “No matter how clever it may be, if a product is complicated to deploy, requires manpower or unusual equipment, and then is even more difficult for the customer to use, it will just end up costing my business time and money to sort out. So it becomes particularly important to make the right choice.”

As a small business itself with the need to manage home working, 3Rnet.co.uk also wanted to find a VoIP telephony solution that it could deploy to meet its own operational requirements. 

Solution
Already working with O-bit Telecom as a reseller of its ADSL solution and wholesale telecoms line rental, Robinson was keen to find out more about O-bit’s VoIP telephony product Purple Networx when it was launched in late 2009. An opportunity to meet the O-bit Purple Networx team and test out the product in person was too intriguing to miss, so Robinson visited the O-bit offices in September 2009.

“I was definitely impressed with Purple Networx and how easy it was to set up and use,” recalls Robinson. “I come from an IT background so Purple Networx really made sense to me in terms of the installation process. It was also a real bonus to meet the support team so I knew I could put faces to names when I would be calling on them for help in the future.”

One of the key benefits of Purple Networx is the minimal equipment required to install the system into business premises. The customer simply requires enough handsets for their needs: a Purple Networx router; an existing phone line; and a PC with an internet browser.

“When the handset and router arrived I phoned the O-bit helpdesk who talked me through the various buttons to press to identify the IP address. Once I’d found the IP address, I punched this into my internet browser and logged into the Purple Networx set-up site,” explains Robinson. “Here I needed to enter various data fields such as extension numbers, passwords and SIP trunks to ensure the system was properly routing to my handsets. All in all, the process literally took about twenty minutes and we were ready to go.”

It wasn’t all completely plain sailing for Robinson, however, who experienced some minor issues at one stage with dialling a particular 0500 number. “Any problems we experienced was actually more down to my unfamiliarity with the product rather than any inherent flaws in Purple Networx itself,” Robinson explains. “It turns out the 0500 number just wasn’t in the dial plan, so once I had spoken to the O-bit support team and got that straightened out, it simply wasn’t a problem.”